Ever heard of the 'law of holes'? It simply states that when you find yourself in a hole, you should first stop digging.
Kenya is in a hole. A deep, deep hole, for that matter. A hole that is threatening to throw the country into a greater economic recession seen in a whole generation.
But instead of bringing together our best thinkers to resolve and alleviate this problem, we are determined to exacerbate it. All we need is common sense.
Our budget for 2022-23 is Sh3.34 trillion. Kenya will spend about 68 percent of its share on recurrent expenditures (40 percent) and interest payments and pensions (28 percent). Only about 21 percent of the budget (Sh711 billion) will go towards development and 11 percent (Sh370 billion) to counties. Is this common sense?
I am one of those that diligently campaigned and voted for our Constitution of Kenya 2010. Even then, my only concern about the Constitution was the many elective positions we had created that would prove to be a burden for the country, a burden for wananchi.
We did not stop there; we are adding more financial burden to the already suffering mama mbogas. Where is common sense?
The presidency (the offices of the president and the deputy president) has already exhausted its allocated annual budget of Sh8 billion and is asking for Sh5 billion more.
The presidency exhausted Sh8 billion four months before the end of the financial year. Doesn't it prick the conscience of President William Ruto and Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua that they will now spend Sh13 billion in a single year?
As if that is not enough, We are adding 50 cabinet administrative secretaries, a position that will cost Kenyans more than Sh13 billion in five years.
I honestly think we do not need the 1,450 MCAs, 329 members of Parliament, 67 senators and 47 governors. The financial burden they come with is overwhelming. We need to reduce the number of people in office by half or review how much we are paying them and give them a smaller paycheck.
According to reports in 2013, if we were second in the global ranking of how we pay our politicians, then we have to be, at the very least, the second most developed nation. Otherwise, this is a ripoff. We pay our legislators more than the United States, Japan and Britain.
Instead of their constitutional duties of promulgating laws and oversight to the Executive, their only concern is how much they will control as constituency development fund. Just ponder over that for a minute. Where is common sense?
I submit that this is the time to put national interests first, take a step back, and look at the whole picture. This is a time to accept that mistakes were made and make intentional attempts to put our act together.
It is not a time for establishing offices of spouses of those we have elected, nor a time for prayers and wishful thinking. God is not our obstacle in this nation; greed and misplaced priorities are. Ethnicity, nepotism and tribalism are our problems, and we seem proud of them, sadly.
The definition of insanity is doing the same things repeatedly and expecting different results. So, the question I pose to all of us is, are our elected representatives sane, or should we lock them in mental institutions?
Lawyer and executive director of Muslims for Human Rights (Muhuri)
